Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies ... - Unicef

35
Section 6.
Disaster Risk Reduction Learning:
Assessment of Students
Assessing learning brings curricular
status but assessment of disaster
risk reduction learning is,
so far, an incomplete project.
Imaginative forms of assessment that
match with active, action-oriented and
competency-based learning are largely
notable by their absence.
The student assessment sections of the extended country
case studies are mainly notable for their thinness. This alone
is indicative of one of this study’s conclusions: assessment of
student learning is the least considered and least developed
element of disaster risk reduction education.
In some cases assessment is restricted to tests of knowledge
of hazards and of what to do if a disaster threatens or strikes.
Such tests usually involve students writing answers to a set
of questions; in a few cases, students are asked to respond to
a series of multiple-choice questions. Such forms of assessment
fall short of illuminating the level of disaster-related skills and
behavioural learning of students, although skills and behavioural
development is held to be of core importance to DRR.
Across the set of case studies, there are a few examples of the
imaginative use of a range of diverse and combined forms of
assessment that seek to illuminate what knowledge students
have acquired, what skills they have developed and the degree
to which their attitudes and dispositions have shifted through
exposure to DRR-related learning programmes. Fully elaborated,
this approach is referred to as portfolio assessment in which
a portfolio of different kinds of data is developed based on
the performance of each student. In terms of DRR curriculum
development, portfolio assessment remains at the level of
good intentions rather than practical implementation. Malawi
(case study 15) is already applying this approach to the primary
curriculum overall and intends to apply it to DRR and climate
change curriculum development. Drawing, miming, teacher
observation (using a checklist), oral questioning, essay and
report writing, singing, and comprehension of written texts will
be used to assess students’ ability to draw upon on acquired
knowledge and skills as well as to illuminate their attitudes,
dispositions and behaviour.
DRR-related assessment in several of the countries studied
here is used primarily for summative purposes, i.e., to gauge
what students know relative to prescribed learning outcomes
at milestones in a learning programme, principally upon its conclusion.
Summative assessment is generally used as part of a
grading process and usually involves written tests of the type
described above. The countries studied in which summative
assessment through tests and exercises remains the predominant
form of evaluation include Turkey (case 5), Cambodia (case 6),
Lao PDR (case 9), The Philippines (case 11) and Egypt (case
study 25). Testing of disaster-related knowledge is often
subsumed under a test for the carrier subject.
In other countries, assessment is used primarily for formative
purposes, i.e., to highlight what is and what is not being
learned and therefore enable programmatic and pedagogical
adjustments to be made in a timely fashion. They include
Madagascar (case study 14) in which simulation exercises are
used to assess levels of student understanding, Nicaragua
(case study 23) in which observations of skills and behaviour
are used to determine student progress towards acquiring
a culture of prevention, and, potentially, Lesotho (case study 13)
in which skills-oriented forms of assessment have been
promised under the new national curriculum.
Some disaster-related national curriculum programmes use
a balanced assessment system in which both formative and
summative assessments form an integral part of information
gathering on student development and achievement.
Disaster Risk Reduction in School Curricula: Case Studies from Thirty Countries